He might be an opinionated jingo, but I'm starting to warm to the old bugger. Once he gets into the seventeenth century, from Charles the First on, it's almost racy, with a cast of overdrawn characters worthy of Robbins or Hailey. Here he is on public morals after the Restoration:
... The praise of politeness and vivacity could now scarcely be obtained except by some violation of decorum. Talents great and various assisted to spread the contagion. Ethical philosophy had recently taken a form well suited to pleasea generation equally devoted to monarchy and to vice. Thomas Hobbes had, in language more precise and luminous than has ever been employed by any other metaphysical writer, maintained that the will of the prince was the standard of right and wrong, and that every subject ought to be ready to profess Popery, Mahometanism or Paganism, at the royal command...
... The restored Church contended indeed against the prevailing immorality, but contended feebly, and with half a heart. It was necessary to the decorum of her character that she should admonish her erring children: but her admonitions were given in a somewhat perfunctory manner. Her attention was elsewhere engaged. Her whole soul was in the crushing of the Puritans, and of teaching her disciples to give unto Caesar the things which were Caesar's... She had been restored to opulence and honour by libertines... If the debauched Cavalier haunted brothels and gambling houses, he at least avoided conventicles. If he never spoke without uttering ribaldry and blasphemy, he made some amends by his eagerness to send Baxter and howe to gaol for preaching and praying. Thus the clergy, for a time, made war on schism with so much vigour that they had no time to make war on vice... It is an unquestionable and most instructive fact that the years during which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the years during which national virtue was at the lowest point...
On "The Popish Plot":
... soon, from all the brothels, gambling houses, and spunging houses [sic] of London, flase witnesses poured forth to swear away the lives of Roman Catholics. One came with a story about an army of thirty thousand men who were to assemble in the disguise of pilgrims at Corrunna, and to sail thence to Wales. Another had been promised canonisation and five hundred pounds to murder the King...
The Parliamentary majority recovers from a political setback:
The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the blood of Roman Catholics.
On the fitness of certain professions for public office:
... a lawyer, who, after many years devoted to professional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an advanced period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a statesman ...
That last one has a few contemporary resonances, don't it?
There's also a copy of Voltaire's The Age of Louis XIV in the house. I was flicking through it yesterday. The second chapter is a survey of the state of various European nations before this glorious time. Here's how Voltaire describes Russia in that era:
Russia was still in a state of barbarism.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
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2 comments:
you've been much too harsh on Macaulay. he was no jingo in his day. In his Parliamentary career he helped abolish the slave trade and voted to extend the franchise (albeit with property qualifications). That counts for a lot more than bashing the Catholic Church which is all well and good anyway and was a constant theme in Enlightenment literature of the day
Jason
As I said, Jason, I'm warming to him - as a historian that is. Didn't find much biography in the obligatory learned introduction so I wasn't up on his Parliamentary career.
His second chapter, on the great stoush between the Stuarts and Parliament which began with Charles first is quite a page turner. And once you get past the accidental humour of some of his broad brush characterisations of historic figures and casual stereotyping, he's very good at bringing out the political issues and the grounds of high principle and low passion that these stoushes were fought on. And that one about Parliament finding consolation in shedding the blood of Roman Catholics is quite mordant.
The Voltaire quote was included for "balance" or something like that - much pithier than Lord Macca but just as sweeping.
I find having a good giggle over some of the more infelicitous remarks of the greats a good prophylactic against being overawed by them. Plus, this isn't supposed to be a serious blog, largely because I find it impossible to write fluently when I'm being boringly earnest. Boringly flippant is much easier.
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